Office Hours
by Nehszriah
Summary: from a prompt on tumblr: Maehb and 12 meet again after the events of Hell Bent. Seeing her causes strong memories about Clara to surface [Whouffaldi]


A/N: This vaguely takes place in s10, though how canon-compliant it is can vary both by reader and by what happens once the Christmas special comes around.

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Office Hours

In the years that followed Maebh Arden's first experience with the former substitute caretaker, also known as the Doctor, things didn't always go as she would have liked. Though Annabel had come home, she and their parents still fought, and with the deaths of first Mr. Pink and then Miss Oswald a few years later, she ended up an emotional wreck before puberty even hit. By the time she was out of Coal Hill, she was on several new medications (ones that she actually knew she needed, for a change) and had scraped together high enough marks and test scores to only be denied by her top three universities instead of all seven. She settled on a university in Bristol—one where she could be far away from her parents and sister feuding over her niece while still close enough to London to accommodate a weekend home if need be.

It was there, of all places, where she ran into him again.

When looking at a course list in her second year, she saw a seminar listed as being taught by "Doctor, The". It was a general elective, counted towards all programs, and seemed to be a universal recommendation by older students. The Doctor was a legendary professor, she heard, who always had the best lectures and never seemed to give the same course twice. He had been faculty at St. Luke's for ages, as it seemed, from the time the university was founded, almost (according to some), so when it came time for her to sign up for courses, she clicked the necessary checkbox and hoped for the best.

She ended up on the waitlist, but the day before classes were scheduled to begin, Maebh was enrolled in the course. The crowd that showed up on the first day was impressive—over double the two-hundred-fifty student limit—and when class began, she understood why people scheduled their other classes around being able to sit in on this one.

"Afternoon; I am the Doctor, and this is officially the most informative course you will ever sit in your entire pudding-brained existence."

His hair was larger, he looked as though he hadn't changed out of the same pajama trousers, jumper, and hoodie for the past three weeks, and he nearly always seemed to be eating something, but it was him, alright. There was no mistaking the thin frame, the Glasgow brogue, the sharpness and precision with which he explained things, and especially the way he scribbled all over the chalkboard.

This wasn't just the Doctor. He was the _Caretaker_.

Occasionally she'd go and attempt to see him on office hours, but there was usually a dumpy, egg-like man who would shoo her away and tell her to come back another time.

"…but I knew him from when he worked at Coal Hill School! In Shoreditch! London!" she protested.

"Never heard of it," Egg Man shrugged.

"My old teacher was his _girlfriend_ —Miss Clara Oswald—and I'm sure they would've gotten married had she not died when I was Year Nine!"

"Sorry, Miss; the only person I know of the boss being married to, let alone been with, was one Professor River Song, and that was a long time ago. Now pop off, or I'll feed you to the sea monkeys."

The door closed in her face and Maebh flipped him a V—bloody Egg Man.

Maebh went back to her dorm room and panicked, nearly running tracks in the already-threadbare rug. She couldn't afford another anxiety attack, not with her marks the way they were, and with how the room felt like it was closing in on her, she suspected that it would take at least a _week_ to come down from it. Glad her roommate wasn't around for additional embarrassment levels (though she was supportive as possible, it was still embarrassing), Maebh put on her jacket, boots, and went outside into the night air for a hopefully-calming walk.

It was a ways, but eventually she found herself sitting on a bench on the banks of the Avon, quietly watching late-night pleasure-craft moving back and forth across the water. People interacting with nature always seemed to calm her, for some odd reason, and the river was no different. Maebh was so entranced by the waterway that she did not realize that someone was next to her until a hand holding a steaming takeaway cup stuck out in front of her face.

"Wot'cha doing out here all alone at night?" the woman offering her a drink asked. She was rather tall, at least compared to Maebh, and a few years older, with a patch-decorated denim jacket and hair more than twice the size of her head. After a moment of staring, the woman realized her error and took a sip of the cup she had been holding out despite having one of her own. "See? It's safe—just some cocoa. You looked like you needed some."

"Thank you," Maebh said, taking the cup. "I feel like I've seen you somewhere before…"

"Same. You a uni student?" the woman asked. She nodded. "Oh, then in the canteen—I work there serving chips, and take some classes on the side. Name's Bill, by the way. Bill Potts." She held out her hand and Maebh shook it.

"I'm Maebh Arden; do you often come to the river to relax?"

"Not really—my tutor cancelled our session for tonight... mostly been a bit… hydrophobic lately." Maebh could see a sadness in Bill's eyes, one that she could tell had secrets. The other woman then perked herself up, forcing a smile. "How about you? Come from a coast or place where you can swim the river?"

"London, not that far from the Thames, though I've never swam in it," Maebh said. "I just like watching natural stuff; calms me down and that sort of thing."

"So the kind of person who sits in a park to watch the trees?"

"Yeah, you can say that."

"Hey, no problem. I can get behind it," Bill chuckled. "Just one question: what do you need calming from?"

"Oh… nothing much…" Maebh looked down at her cocoa and frowned. "Just student stuff. Can't get in during office hours, you know."

"English Department? I hear they're _terribad_ at the whole office hours thing."

"No, the Doctor. I've got his Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday afternoon course and every time I go over there to have a chat, his cue ball of a secretary tries to schedule me in for April 31st or something like that."

Bill paused for a moment before snickering into her cocoa. "Oh, you mean Nardole… just walk right past him. Total pushover."

"You've been there?"

"The Doctor and I have an arrangement so that he can be my tutor, though it's a lot more like having an overly-clever granddad, I suppose," Bill admitted. "You want to come meet him?"

"Wait, right now?"

"Yeah, right now."

"…but I thought you said…!"

"Just because he cancelled doesn't mean that he's _busy_ ; c'mon."

At that, Maebh and Bill walked the path that led them back to St. Luke's, up to the old, stately building where the Doctor had his office in. The only person milling about was, unfortunately, Nardole, who gave the two ladies a disapproving look when they entered.

"Hey, you're not scheduled to be here!" he scolded.

"It's _fine_ , Nardole," Bill assured him. "Maebh here needs to talk to the Doctor about class or something. Why you keep turning her away?"

"…because it's nothing important," he replied.

"Seeing my professor isn't important?"

"No: unnecessarily bothering _the Doctor_ is unimportant."

"…but he's _my_ professor…!"

"I hate to say it, love, but he's got more important things to do than mess about with you lot constantly. I told him this was a bad idea, you know, but he refused. Wanted to do the best by the native species where it does the most damage, or something of that nature, but…"

Tears of frustration began to sting the corners of Maebh's eyes as she concentrated at tuning the Egg Man out, and suddenly the room warped and became small. The curtains, Nardole, the bookcases, the very nice Miss Bill, and even the odd blue box in the corner that she remembered so well all felt like they were on top of her, crashing down with no warning. Without an emergency supply of medicine on her, Maebh crouched down into a squatting position and held the sides of her head with her fist, feeling like she was a helpless little kid again. She heard Miss Bill and Nardole's voices arguing, but with her head spinning, she couldn't make anything out.

This was what she had feared before packing up and leaving London behind; crushing anxiety and doubt and the feeling like her breath was stuck in her chest and she couldn't get it out. Even if this _was_ just little things piling up and crashing down, what was she going to do when it was a really big thing, like a class that was _super_ -kicking her arse? She was tired of being handled with kid gloves, but if this was what happened with _fingerless_ kid gloves… oh no. This was all a mistake. She never should have accepted Miss Bill's offer, never taken that cup of cocoa, never…

A hand gently found her shoulder and she gasped, falling down on her rear end as she turned to look. Maebh's eyes went wide when she realized it was the Doctor crouched down next to her, a confused expression on his face and a bag of empty takeaway containers in his other hand.

"I know you," he said, furrowing his brow. The room had fallen silent, with Nardole and Miss Bill ceasing their row to listen. "Where do I know you?"

"I'm Maebh! Maebh Arden, don't you remember?" she blurted, her panic attack melting away. She stood, which prompted him to as well. He was still much taller than her, but less so than she remembered. Then again, she was still in lower secondary back then—most people are taller than you when you're in lower secondary.

"Maebh Arden…" the Doctor pondered. He binned the takeaway containers and sat down at his desk. "You're on my class roster for afternoons, Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, aren't you?"

"Yes, but we've met before. I'm one of Miss Oswald's students. You remember Miss Oswald, don't you?"

"Now Young Lady, I thought we've been through this—"

"Nardole," the Doctor interrupted, "go find something useful to do… like fetch us some tea." He waited until the Egg Man had groused his way out of the room before motioning back towards Maebh. "Continue, please."

"Miss Oswald was my teacher at Coal Hill—a secondary school in Shoreditch—and you were there," she explained. "You and Mr. Pink were her boyfriends, or Mr. Pink was her boyfriend and you were her manfriend because of your age, and when Mr. Pink died, you were there for her…"

"Wait, who was Mr. Pink?"

"Mr. Pink—you always thought he taught P.E. instead of maths."

"Lots of people really should be teaching P.E. instead of maths—common fault, really."

"He died, around the time of the solar flare everyone keeps saying was some publicity stunt for a movie they forgot, and Miss Oswald was devastated, but then you came back, and she was so, so happy." The tears that pricked at her eyes weren't all frustration now, but melancholy and confused. "She died too, but you weren't around at that time either. Why were you here instead of with her? That's all I want to know."

The Doctor went quiet, folding his hands atop the desk in thought. Bill looked at them both in confusion, not entirely sure she was getting it all straight.

"Okay, so, let me get this straight: he used to be your teacher's partner—"

"—manfriend—"

"—right, manfriend, back when you were in secondary school? That couldn't've been _that_ long ago. Doctor, I thought you've been teaching here for ages."

"I have, but there is a blank spot in my timeline, a fuzzy period so to speak, where I'm not entirely certain about things," he said very calmly. He was so calm that he was scaring his protégé, making it so that she silently sat off to the side, watching the scene carefully. "Miss Arden here might have some clues for me. Wouldn't that be lovely?" He took out a pad and pen from a drawer, gesturing for Maebh to sit down across from him. "Now tell me what you can about this 'Miss Oswald' you keep speaking of."

"Well…" Maebh had to reach back into her memory, attempting to recall a face from years ago. "She was a bit shorter than I am now, I think, with brown hair and eyes and—"

"No, I mean, start with her _name_ ," he insisted. "I probably didn't go around calling her 'Miss Oswald' all the time."

"Her name was _Clara_ Oswald."

No sooner had she said that did the Doctor freeze in place. Bill and Maebh both stared at him, wondering what was happening, until all of a sudden his body began to shake. He was still in the stiff writing position he had been in before, yet he was shaking so badly that the pen fell out of his hand and onto the desktop.

"Nardole! We need help!" Bill shouted. She and Maebh took the Doctor and laid him down on the rug. When Nardole reentered the room, however, he nearly dropped the tea service.

"What did you two do to him?!" he gasped.

"Nothing! Nothing! I was just telling him about Miss Oswald!" Maebh cried. "Oh God—should he need to breathe?!"

"Not as often as we do, trust me," Bill said. She then stared at Nardole. "Does he have a history of these?"

"No! This is the first time!" He knelt beside the Doctor and watched him silently convulse. "What did you say that made him do this?!"

"All I did was say her name!"

"…and that was…?"

Before Maebh had a chance to respond, the Doctor stopped shaking and immediately sat straight up, an intense, desperate look etched into his face.

"CLARA!" he gasped, gulping down air. "Clara! My Clara… where is she?!"

"Doctor, she's not here!" Maebh replied. "She's dead!"

"No, she's not! I saved her! I went through _Hell_ for her! She has a TARDIS and… ooooohhh, Ashildr! You are in a lot of trouble when I find you, young lady! I am _very cross with you_!" He scrambled to his feet and waddled towards the TARDIS, with Bill and Maebh immediately following.

"Sir! Your oath!" Nardole reminded him, bringing up the rear.

"You do it, just for now—I need to find Clara, let her know that the neural block is lifted, that her _brilliant student_ , Maebh Arden, helped me out once again, and now! Now nothing can stop us!"

"Wait, I thought Nardole said that you were married to Professor Song?" Bill asked, very confused as she watched the Doctor flip switches, press buttons, and fiddle with whatchamacallits.

"I was, but Professor Song and I never really seemed to meet at similar points in one another's time stream, so there was a sort of… _understanding_ ," he said. "Clara… oh, at first I didn't know what she was other than a puzzle—a mystery the universe wanted me to solve—but as time went on, I realized that there was no puzzle, no mystery, simply a very brave, caring, and selfless woman."

"Gosh, you fell _hard_ ," Maebh noted.

"Hey, don't knock it 'till you've tried it," Bill laughed awkwardly. "You went through Hell for her, but not for your wife?"

The Doctor stopped and spun around to face the two human women that were now in his ship. "Listen, I told you: River and I didn't meet in a linear fashion, meaning by the time I realized what our relationship was, I had already watched her die and knew that there wasn't anything I could do at that point anymore in my time stream. When I saw Clara die, dropping to the cobblestone street, my hearts were _furious_ , and I knew that I couldn't lose another one before their time. I could _not_ lose another love, not like that, so I acted."

"…and acting got you a _neural block_ , from the sounds of things," Nardole huffed. "Those things aren't simply used for no reason; why the neural block?"

"I needed to protect her, and the best way was wiping my memories," the Doctor said. There was something about his face that told Maebh he wasn't telling the entire truth, but that what he said wasn't entirely far off. "For so long, all I had was a shapeless, faceless being, to the point where I was beginning to think I made her up. Now I know Clara's out there, and I need to find her."

"Then let's go—reuniting soul mates sounds like fun," Bill said.

"We can't," Nardole cut in.

"Not my oath, Nardole," the Doctor whined, walking around the console. "I'll be back in a tic—thirty seconds at the most."

"No, not the oath," Egg Man frowned. He pointed at a thing in the control panel that looked like a brain to Maebh and Bill. "The only sure-fire way of finding her is using that, considering there's _plenty_ of time and space for her to be in."

"Yeah…? And…?" The Doctor raised a brow and tilted his head, ready to go into Independent State of Crossness Mode.

"What if she's in _her_ TARDIS?" Nardole posed. "Landing a TARDIS inside another TARDIS is a tricky maneuver, one that you've told me yourself can mean disaster for the time vortex."

"You really think I care about the time vortex at this rate? Finish toddling around or whatever it is you do when I'm not there and _I'll be back_."

"I don't know who this Clara is, but if you destroy the time vortex while attempting to find her, you destroy _her_ as well and I highly doubt that's the point." He watched as the Doctor grew silent and sat down on a nearby chair, devastated. Shaking his head, he wandered back towards the door. "Don't blame me for this one—you knew it was true before I even pointed it out, as usual."

"Clara…" the Doctor muttered. He put his face in his hands and exhaled loudly, fully aware of the company he still had on the other side of the console. "It's alright—you two can go. This old man needs some time to think."

"You're not that old," Maebh offered.

"Yes, I am," he said. "I am an old, tired man who is sick of change. Every so often, I need to reinvent myself from the genome up, sometimes even with the same face, and it's wearing at me. Just when I thought I can bring back something from the past, something that was truly good and wonderful, this happens. It's my luck."

"At least you know she's not lost—not the way she was before," Maebh said. She walked over to the Doctor and knelt before him, looking up at his sad, heavy-lidded eyes that, yes, definitely looked as old as he claimed now. "Maybe, someday, you'll run into her again. The only unfortunate part is that it is not today."

"…and how do you know that?"

"It's not the same, but it's what I thought every night when Annabel was gone, before I went to sleep across the room from her old bed. When she came back though… oh, it was the best feeling in the world to have my sister again. That's not you and Miss Oswald, but it is in the same vein, I think."

Nodding slowly, the Doctor gave Maebh a wan smile. "I think it might be. That's a third time you've helped me, Maebh Arden. Think you might want a spot on the ship? All of time and space?"

"Thanks, but I better take care of my coursework before I see stars up close," she said.

She then gave him a hug, which he initially tensed up at, but eased himself into when he realized how much better he felt. It was a tender moment, one Bill covertly photographed so that she could tease him about it later when he was feeling particularly gruff and grumpy, until Maebh broke it and stood, putting her fists on her hips and a scowl on her face.

"Now," she huffed, "you need to keep more normal office hours."


End file.
